Saori Ono “Believing Figure / Invisible Figure”

Gallery MoMo Projects

Finished

Artists

Saori Ono

Saori Ono’s paintings often depict ocean creatures in a compassionate way, informed by her experiences as a child raised in a fishing family. After losing her grandfather in an incident at sea, his death and the survival of her father meant that Ono gained a sense of the strength of life, but also of its fleeting nature. On March 11, 2011, her hometown of Fukushima suffered catastrophic damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami that followed. Even though her family survived, there was a difficult period when Ono struggled to confirm their safety. Her practice is informed by these experiences relating to life and death. Recently Ono has begun working with mirrors as a motif in her work in order to express the duality and two-faced aspect of nature.

Since ancient times, mirrors have been employed to protect the spirits of the dead. In Japan, mirrors appear in the two oldest Japanese texts, “The Chronicles of Japan” and “Records of Ancient Matters,” as one of three sacred treasures of Japan. Since the Renaissance, many artists have used mirrors to paint self-portraits and come face-to-face with the self. Ono, however, does not depict objects that reflected in the mirror, but instead encourages the illusion that there are the objects in the painting behind the viewer. In this way viewers are drawn into her world through the mirror frame.

In this exhibition Ono will present 13 oil paintings that take on a pink and very seasonal hue.

Schedule

Mar 25 (Sat) 2017-Apr 22 (Sat) 2017